SDASM first opened on Feb. 15, 1963, in Balboa Park’s Food and Beverage Building. It then moved into the nearby Electric Building in 1965, where it remained until 1978, when a fire destroyed the museum and its contents. The board, staff and members, with strong support from the community, immediately began to rebuild and moved SDASM into the historic Ford Building in 1980, where it resides today.

Today, SDASM is California’s "Official Air and Space Museum," one of the four largest aviation and space museums in the country and home to the third largest aviation archives and library.

SDASM recently opened "Ripley’s Believe It or Not!." This is the first time a Ripley’s exhibit has returned to San Diego since the California Pacific International Exposition in 1935, the same year the Ford Building was built.